combining two pension funds into one

pensionworrier

My Dad has two pension schemes with Norwich Union. He is at retirement age now as the schemes individually are not much money he would like to combine them into on pension scheme and to draw an income from it - he would also like to draw a tax free amount.
He is already drawing from one of the schemes and has to now choose how he would like to take the other scheme.
Please advise if;
A. He can combine these two schemes into one?
B. What would be the most tax efficient way to draw his pension (i.e in one scheme or as two separate schemes)
C. he would like to take a cash free lump sum the options he has been given don't provide much of a lump sum i.e. a quater of the entire fund he is allowed tax free in one go - could this be increased?
We know nothing about pensions and he has to make up his mind soon and pointers are much appreciated as we already saw a financial adviser through unbiased.com but he couldnt advise on the pensions and we dont have any money to see another one.

dunstonh

A. He can combine these two schemes into one?

He could have done had he not already started benefits on one of them.

B. What would be the most tax efficient way to draw his pension (i.e in one scheme or as two separate schemes)

There is no tax efficient way but he could have got more potentially by combining them and utilising the open market option.

C. he would like to take a cash free lump sum the options he has been given don't provide much of a lump sum i.e. a quater of the entire fund he is allowed tax free in one go - could this be increased?

Cannot be increased.

we already saw a financial adviser through unbiased.com but he couldnt advise on the pensions and we dont have any money to see another one.

Its probably that his pensions is too small for them to be interested. Commission is around 1% on annuities (after tax free cash) and if his funds are low then it isnt really cost effective for IFAs to do it on commission basis but to do it on fee basis instead.

davey9998

dunston what about trivial commutation - we don't know the size of the funds

dunstonh

one is already commenced so triviality doesnt apply to that one. The other could use trviality if the two values combined (curent value on current one and historic on commenced one) dont exceed 1% of the lifetime allowance.

pensionworrier

hi,
both funds are small (under thirteen thousand each) I asked TPAS (The Pension Advisory Service) about what options my dad has and was told that he could take the the fund which hasn't started in one go. We went back to Norwich Union to do this but they said this isnt possble - we have tried to contact inlend revenue to ask them but we can't get through on the phone so now I am waiting for an email response from them - have you any further advice/ comments?

EdInvestor

If the 2 funds total 26k, he cannot do trivial commutation, they are too big.If he has already taken benefits (bought an annuity) from one of them, he cannot change that.

All he can now do is take 25% tax free cash and an income from the other one.